Swat Team A Challenge For First Woman On Force

FORT LAUDERDALE — Raiding drug houses and confronting armed bank robbers is all part of the job for Susan Tubman, the only woman on the police department`s SWAT team.

Tubman, 30, was recruited for the team a year ago while on overnight patrol in the northwest section of Fort Lauderdale. She says she was flattered to be the first woman on the team.

``I`m proud and honored to be where I am,`` Tubman said. ``I`m learning every day -- that`s one of the things I love about police work.``

Tubman and the other 16 SWAT team members receive special weapons and strategy training to respond to crimes in progress, from the taking of hostages to armed robberies.

The team is called only in extreme cases where police expect heavy armed resistance, but its members use their expertise as a plainclothes force between calls.

During a recent series of drug raids, the team was called in to storm suspected drug houses. A caravan of cars would quietly approach a house, and then the members, rifles in hand, would race toward the residence, shattering locked windows and doors with sledgehammers and dragging out surprised suspects.

It is hardly a role one would expect to find the soft-spoken officer filling. But Tubman says she enjoys the challenge and has never been easily intimidated. ``You can`t walk around worrying about the danger or you`ll go crazy,`` she said. ``You just have to deal with each situation when it comes up.``

Tubman carries a bulky bulletproof vest and cap in her car, ready to change into them if a call comes in.

Aside from three sharpshooters, all of the SWAT team members serve on a tactical impact unit, with duties including surveillance work, stakeouts and assistance in handling ``in-progress`` crimes.

Sgt. William Stewart, one of two sergeants in charge of the tactical impact unit, said he asked Tubman to join the team because he was impressed with her work as a patrol officer.

``She kept a cool head in stressful situations,`` he said. ``And she was a hard worker.``

Being the first woman on the team, Tubman initially was submitted to more scrutiny than some of her fellow officers, she said.

``They were apprehensive, which I expected them to be. But I went up with an open mind, and they kept an open mind, and we hit it off right away.

``I didn`t feel I had to prove myself any more than anyone else, because no one made me feel that way.``

Officer John Curry, a SWAT team member for four years, said he had some doubts at first about working alongside a woman. He said he was not sure Tubman would be physically and emotionally strong enough for the job.

``I had some reservations, but they`ve been resolved,`` he said. ``She`s a fine officer. She wants to succeed, and she does.``

Tubman said being a woman has not hampered her as an officer, even when faced with a violent criminal. ``I can communicate well with them . . . They tend to give me less of a hard time, not more,`` she said.

Tubman had toyed with the idea of becoming a police officer for seven or eight years before she and her husband moved to Florida, she said.

After three years of working as a property assessor in Massachusetts, she said she was ready for a job with a little more excitement.

She did not have to look far for ideas. Her husband, Jeff, has been a police officer for 14 years, and serves with the Metro-Dade Police Department.